happy new years

Another couple of hours and 2008 will be gone, it's events and memories will become our collective history, 2009 will dawn and the hope for new and better life will infuse us all with optimism, and celebration. Well if not all, then at least those of us with enough foresight to plan evening festivities. Some will look back and hope that the events of the waning year quickly recede into distant memory, others will wish that the events continue on, in an ever widening circle of joy. Some look ahead, hoping that the coming year will bring joy hitherto missing in one's life. While still others merely turn the page of a new and yet somehow familiar calendar. Many see the coming year with frightened eyes, hoping that the economic downturn turns out to be more bluster than substance. We are all of us fearful of the unknown, will our jobs be safe? Will my children? Will those we love, not fall too far? Almost universally we see this date as a time of assessment, and a time to reflect on new beginnings, a chance to correct errors in jugement and commission we have made. Many amongst us will resolve to change, our circumstances, our health, our station or our habits, we call these resolutions, and many amongst us make these, only to disappoint ourselves weeks or days or even hours later, when our resolve to change ourselves for the better, falls short once again Still others amongst us seek parties and celebrations in order to ring in the new year, as though time would stand still, were it not for the revellers. I wonder if the celebrants seek to deaden themselves from the realization that another year has passed, and little has changed. Despite resolutions to the contrary of only one year past I will watch another year pass in solitary contemplation, saddened that more time has escaped my grasp, that a year has passed and my accomplishments still are numbered by the birthdates of my children. That my writing, woeful as it is, has a smaller audience now than it did. That my loneliness seems more acute this year than last, one could almost rejoice that I am able to feel lonely, a feeling which has eluded me for many years. Save for the knowledge that knowing what one is missing, does nothing to make it easier. Happy New Year, and more to the point, happy new year